Yuppie Fishtanks
July 3, 2021 2:37 PM Subscribe
Building new market housing downtown to catch high-income renters - yuppie fishtanks - as a way to keep them from pushing renters out of older working-class residential neighborhoods. As a TikTok video.
Noah Smith: "In 2018, I wrote a post about why building market-rate housing in gentrifying cities helps relieve rent pressure on long-time working-class residents. I dubbed this kind of housing 'yuppie fishtanks', and I tried to explain why they help without resorting to the theory of supply and demand. ... with people moving back to the big cities after Covid, and housing construction still lagging, I thought it would be a good time to re-up my original post."
Noah Smith: "In 2018, I wrote a post about why building market-rate housing in gentrifying cities helps relieve rent pressure on long-time working-class residents. I dubbed this kind of housing 'yuppie fishtanks', and I tried to explain why they help without resorting to the theory of supply and demand. ... with people moving back to the big cities after Covid, and housing construction still lagging, I thought it would be a good time to re-up my original post."
Man, call ‘em whatever you need to sell them, just convince people to build, build build.
posted by Going To Maine at 3:46 PM on July 3, 2021 [7 favorites]
posted by Going To Maine at 3:46 PM on July 3, 2021 [7 favorites]
There's a weird racial dynamic to this in NYC, where Asian yuppies live in Midtown and LIC yuppie fishtanks, but white yuppies live in Brooklyn walkups.
posted by airmail at 4:09 PM on July 3, 2021
posted by airmail at 4:09 PM on July 3, 2021
I mean, I'm not sure the experiments have panned out like he predicted- some of the biggest buildings in downtown SF are trying to convert their market-rate housing units to short term rentals for visiting workers (like an extended-stay payed for by their company) because the desire to live there has been underwhelming (looking at you here NEMA). Even pre-pandemic, those buildings were advertising hard to try and get people in there, when other places were going fast.
I'm not sure they've been quite the yuppie containment that the author thought they'd be. Probably doesn't help that they're next to none of the 'yuppie infrastructure' that might make the neighborhood appealing (sandwitched between the leather bars to the south, and the crushing poverty to the north. Maybe it would work somewhere. But given that this person made a prediction, I'd rather there had been a followup of how that prediction turned out. Nobody I know living in those buildings is there by choice (or 'yuppies' for that matter)- they were evicted from somewhere else, and these giant new places always have space open while you look for somewhere better to live.
It's nice to see someone pro-building not be just yelling about how the free market will solve everything, since 'it's first year economics', and admit there's economics past year 1 (and maybe even a reason why supply and demand is an introductory concept that's then overridden by any useful model). I'd like there to be more thoughtful analyses, but this is a just-so-story about yuppie containment, and I'm not sure that reality is panning out according to the predictions.
posted by whm at 4:55 PM on July 3, 2021 [5 favorites]
I'm not sure they've been quite the yuppie containment that the author thought they'd be. Probably doesn't help that they're next to none of the 'yuppie infrastructure' that might make the neighborhood appealing (sandwitched between the leather bars to the south, and the crushing poverty to the north. Maybe it would work somewhere. But given that this person made a prediction, I'd rather there had been a followup of how that prediction turned out. Nobody I know living in those buildings is there by choice (or 'yuppies' for that matter)- they were evicted from somewhere else, and these giant new places always have space open while you look for somewhere better to live.
It's nice to see someone pro-building not be just yelling about how the free market will solve everything, since 'it's first year economics', and admit there's economics past year 1 (and maybe even a reason why supply and demand is an introductory concept that's then overridden by any useful model). I'd like there to be more thoughtful analyses, but this is a just-so-story about yuppie containment, and I'm not sure that reality is panning out according to the predictions.
posted by whm at 4:55 PM on July 3, 2021 [5 favorites]
Yeah, I’m gonna call bullshit.
If you care about having housing for working class people, you build housing for working class people. Building luxury towers doesn’t contain shit. It raises land values and leads to additional luxury development and tenant displacement, rendering swaths of a city permanently inaccessible to working class residents.
Trickle-down economics doesn’t work and neither does trickle-down real estate. If you keep building luxury units it doesn’t free up non-luxury units, all it does is move the goalposts for what people expect they can earn on a property.
Maybe we should put our energy into building what we actually need.
posted by evidenceofabsence at 5:20 PM on July 3, 2021 [41 favorites]
If you care about having housing for working class people, you build housing for working class people. Building luxury towers doesn’t contain shit. It raises land values and leads to additional luxury development and tenant displacement, rendering swaths of a city permanently inaccessible to working class residents.
Trickle-down economics doesn’t work and neither does trickle-down real estate. If you keep building luxury units it doesn’t free up non-luxury units, all it does is move the goalposts for what people expect they can earn on a property.
Maybe we should put our energy into building what we actually need.
posted by evidenceofabsence at 5:20 PM on July 3, 2021 [41 favorites]
I was thinking that both Geoffrey West and my city's business paper both assume that density with jobs has a reinforcing feedback loop and will attract ever more and more people. IIRC West says something like, cities tend to grow until endogenous shocks or environmental constraints balance the attraction; and the business paper doesn't seem to talk about the possibility of either limits or downturns at all. Both expect wages to go up and the paper expects investments in real estate to make all the real estate in the city more expensive.
I think the fishtanks in Seattle are at least occupied, though!
posted by clew at 5:22 PM on July 3, 2021 [3 favorites]
I think the fishtanks in Seattle are at least occupied, though!
posted by clew at 5:22 PM on July 3, 2021 [3 favorites]
I know NYC is its own special real estate hell, but this study (.pdf) digs into the impact that rezonings for “yuppie towers” had for surrounding areas.
Suffice to say that TikTok guy’s analysis didn’t pan out.
posted by evidenceofabsence at 5:26 PM on July 3, 2021 [11 favorites]
Suffice to say that TikTok guy’s analysis didn’t pan out.
posted by evidenceofabsence at 5:26 PM on July 3, 2021 [11 favorites]
If you care about having housing for working class people, you build housing for working class people.
If you care about having housing for a working underclass, you build housing strictly for working class people. If it isn't strictly for working class people, they will have to compete for housing with people far more moneyed. The question is, you you really want to subsidize an underclass for your city? Because building housing strictly for working class people will be just as costly as building any kind of housing, which means a subsidy. And a good chance the housing will be substandard to boot.
This topic of housing, particularly in desirable areas, is extremely difficult. Even if you were to deem housing a right, which it isn't, advocating for such specific conditions argues as a right to housing where one wishes to live. Which is even far beyond the right to housing, and a much more difficult sell to just about everyone.
posted by 2N2222 at 5:58 PM on July 3, 2021 [5 favorites]
If you care about having housing for a working underclass, you build housing strictly for working class people. If it isn't strictly for working class people, they will have to compete for housing with people far more moneyed. The question is, you you really want to subsidize an underclass for your city? Because building housing strictly for working class people will be just as costly as building any kind of housing, which means a subsidy. And a good chance the housing will be substandard to boot.
This topic of housing, particularly in desirable areas, is extremely difficult. Even if you were to deem housing a right, which it isn't, advocating for such specific conditions argues as a right to housing where one wishes to live. Which is even far beyond the right to housing, and a much more difficult sell to just about everyone.
posted by 2N2222 at 5:58 PM on July 3, 2021 [5 favorites]
I'm perplexed by the claim that he's not explaining via supply and demand, when that indeed is the entire substance of his argument: that residents have preferences about where they live in the city and the type of housing they live in is, ya know, about their *demand* for proximity (or style, or amenities, or whatever). I have as much disdain for economists (at least the kind that turn up in the press justifying right-wing policy) as anyone, but even the most orthodox account of housing markets is capable of this kind of nuance. His explanation isn't wrong, but it's not especially out of the ordinary either. Classic technical person rediscovering what social science people already know...
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 6:10 PM on July 3, 2021
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 6:10 PM on July 3, 2021
It has been brought to my attention that the author in fact is an economist? In which case I confess to being wrong. It still feels like something a cashed up Google employee would write though.
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 6:41 PM on July 3, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 6:41 PM on July 3, 2021 [1 favorite]
Boy, it sure doesn't feel like this is too correct.
I'm in Toronto, and we currently have over half of North America's cranes. What're they building? Yuppie Fishtanks, one and all.
But those prices have been marching steadily up over the past decade, no matter how many fancy towers we build.
In point of fact, we are losing a lot of those working-class houses, as a bunch of property owners realize that they can tear down their existing working-class, 5-story, brownstone apartment building and build some 30 stories of smaller condos and make bank.
If this theory really worked, here in Toronto, where we are building Yuppie Fishtanks at unprecedented levels, you'd expect we'd see some sort of, I dunno, proof of it. And yet...
posted by Imperfect at 7:13 PM on July 3, 2021 [21 favorites]
I'm in Toronto, and we currently have over half of North America's cranes. What're they building? Yuppie Fishtanks, one and all.
But those prices have been marching steadily up over the past decade, no matter how many fancy towers we build.
In point of fact, we are losing a lot of those working-class houses, as a bunch of property owners realize that they can tear down their existing working-class, 5-story, brownstone apartment building and build some 30 stories of smaller condos and make bank.
If this theory really worked, here in Toronto, where we are building Yuppie Fishtanks at unprecedented levels, you'd expect we'd see some sort of, I dunno, proof of it. And yet...
posted by Imperfect at 7:13 PM on July 3, 2021 [21 favorites]
This is one of the most studied questions of housing economics and town planning, for what it’s worth. If that makes it any easier to have single-cause solutions applicable to different cities and political economies
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 7:16 PM on July 3, 2021
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 7:16 PM on July 3, 2021
I was about to write something about Toronto that was a little more salty, but suffice to say the author has not been to Toronto.
posted by rodlymight at 7:17 PM on July 3, 2021 [8 favorites]
posted by rodlymight at 7:17 PM on July 3, 2021 [8 favorites]
Yeah, rodlymight, my first run at that comment was a lot more salty, but then I reigned that in and took another crack at it. Currently looking to move, and though the pandemic has softened rents a little (though mostly in the form of "free months" and move-in bonuses, rather than reduced prices), prices are on the move back up already.
posted by Imperfect at 7:19 PM on July 3, 2021
posted by Imperfect at 7:19 PM on July 3, 2021
Which is even far beyond the right to housing, and a much more difficult sell to just about everyone.
posted by 2N2222 at 5:58 PM on July 3
and yet, much less difficult apparently, than the right to wages you are implying
posted by eustatic at 7:25 PM on July 3, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by 2N2222 at 5:58 PM on July 3
and yet, much less difficult apparently, than the right to wages you are implying
posted by eustatic at 7:25 PM on July 3, 2021 [2 favorites]
The question is, you you really want to subsidize an underclass for your city?
Are you planning on opening the McD's at 6 am, wiping old people's asses all day, and picking up garbage at night?
Your city's going to have an underclass. The question is what degree of immiseration you intend to impose on them, all the while crossing your fingers that the people you think don't even have a right to a roof over their heads don't realize that they have eff-all reason not to reach for the guillotine.
posted by praemunire at 8:33 PM on July 3, 2021 [21 favorites]
Are you planning on opening the McD's at 6 am, wiping old people's asses all day, and picking up garbage at night?
Your city's going to have an underclass. The question is what degree of immiseration you intend to impose on them, all the while crossing your fingers that the people you think don't even have a right to a roof over their heads don't realize that they have eff-all reason not to reach for the guillotine.
posted by praemunire at 8:33 PM on July 3, 2021 [21 favorites]
If you care about having housing for a working underclass, you build housing strictly for working class people. If it isn't strictly for working class people, they will have to compete for housing with people far more moneyed. The question is, you you really want to subsidize an underclass for your city?
More and more I feel like there needs to be some concept like international literacy, in the mode of cultural literacy - knowing about how things are done differently in different countries and societies, for the sake of supporting more informed analysis of the options available for local implementation. We should have "how other places do it" classes in school; it should be considered a basic part of any halfway competent education. Without that we keep either reinventing the wheel from scratch, or assuming things like "wheels aren't possible" or "wheels aren't practical", or being unaware of the concept of wheels in the first place.
The view quoted above is a very US-centric one. Other countries have taken different approaches. Sweden, for one example, famously decided that socioeconomic segregation would be harmful to the country and consequently adopted a long-standing and explicit social mix housing policy. You can have different opinions about the success or consequences of a given approach, but assumptions about housing that are ignorant of all the different approaches that have been concretely implemented in the real world over decades and even centuries are kind of pointless.
posted by trig at 9:48 PM on July 3, 2021 [24 favorites]
More and more I feel like there needs to be some concept like international literacy, in the mode of cultural literacy - knowing about how things are done differently in different countries and societies, for the sake of supporting more informed analysis of the options available for local implementation. We should have "how other places do it" classes in school; it should be considered a basic part of any halfway competent education. Without that we keep either reinventing the wheel from scratch, or assuming things like "wheels aren't possible" or "wheels aren't practical", or being unaware of the concept of wheels in the first place.
The view quoted above is a very US-centric one. Other countries have taken different approaches. Sweden, for one example, famously decided that socioeconomic segregation would be harmful to the country and consequently adopted a long-standing and explicit social mix housing policy. You can have different opinions about the success or consequences of a given approach, but assumptions about housing that are ignorant of all the different approaches that have been concretely implemented in the real world over decades and even centuries are kind of pointless.
posted by trig at 9:48 PM on July 3, 2021 [24 favorites]
"The question is, you you really want to subsidize an underclass for your city?"
Hell fucking yes, I do. Like, what's the alternative? Having an underclass with no hope, no prospects, nobody caring about them at all? How do you think you enable class mobility at all, if not by taking some of the wealth earned by the upper class and redistributing it to the people who didn't have a fair shake to begin with?
posted by Imperfect at 9:59 PM on July 3, 2021 [20 favorites]
Hell fucking yes, I do. Like, what's the alternative? Having an underclass with no hope, no prospects, nobody caring about them at all? How do you think you enable class mobility at all, if not by taking some of the wealth earned by the upper class and redistributing it to the people who didn't have a fair shake to begin with?
posted by Imperfect at 9:59 PM on July 3, 2021 [20 favorites]
OP here. Can I request that people not pile onto 2N2222? Not sure we need more than five people criticizing them.
The Noah Smith post does in fact talk about building affordable housing.
CMHC has housing market data for Canadian cities. In the Toronto metropolitan area, the vacancy rate in fall 2019 was 1.2%. In Saskatoon (my baseline for comparison because of this tweet), it was 7.3%.
posted by russilwvong at 10:28 PM on July 3, 2021 [4 favorites]
The Noah Smith post does in fact talk about building affordable housing.
CMHC has housing market data for Canadian cities. In the Toronto metropolitan area, the vacancy rate in fall 2019 was 1.2%. In Saskatoon (my baseline for comparison because of this tweet), it was 7.3%.
posted by russilwvong at 10:28 PM on July 3, 2021 [4 favorites]
Toronto isn't special. Population is growing faster than housing - so housing is getting more expensive. Maybe you can see some cranes, but don't kid yourselves - in 2019 the city gained 125,000 people and 30,000 units of housing. It needs an extra 100,000+ bedrooms *today*, and then it needs to *increase* construction by over 10,000 units per year or just end up back in today's mess. Yuppie fishbowls will do just as well as anything else, so either build them or build something else, but let's not get stuck in some fantasy where the solution is not to build more housing.
posted by bashing rocks together at 10:47 PM on July 3, 2021 [8 favorites]
posted by bashing rocks together at 10:47 PM on July 3, 2021 [8 favorites]
Yeah, that's my home town in the TikTok video, and this chipper uninformed spin is enraging baloney.
A large percentage of those new construction Downtown Los Angeles and Hollywood tower apartments operate as illegal Airbnbs and day-use filming locations, or sit empty as money laundering vehicles. (Until recently, if you were an overseas investor, you could invest in one of these projects and get a EB-5 visa--with no obligation to actually live in it.)
In Downtown, blocks from these new towers, there are hundreds of rent stabilized single hotel rooms sitting vacant, because just like with the illegal Airbnbs and filming locations, the city doesn't care enough to inspect them and require they be rented out. At least three of these hotels--Cecil, Barclay and Morrison--are supposedly being converted to boutique hotels eventually, which is an incentive to keep them vacant. So in fact, these new towers do actively displace poor people and contribute to gentrification.
The councilman who represented this district has been indicted on RICO charges for trading bribes for land use votes, as part of a criminal conspiracy that included a deputy mayor, at least one appointed commissioner and numerous lobbyists, developers and land use attorneys.
And the most massive of the so-called yuppie fishtanks was abandoned by the Chinese developer and is rotting away as a symbol of how public corruption spoils our built environment and contributes to the commodification of housing and the nation's worst homelessness crisis. We've got about 60,000 people on the street, and at least 111,000 vacant units. So there's room for every yuppie guppy already. It's time for Los Angeles to hit the pause button, take a hard look in the mirror, and stop doing so much to make overseas developers happy. I've never seen Angelenos more miserable, and running the city for them is why.
posted by Scram at 11:15 PM on July 3, 2021 [17 favorites]
A large percentage of those new construction Downtown Los Angeles and Hollywood tower apartments operate as illegal Airbnbs and day-use filming locations, or sit empty as money laundering vehicles. (Until recently, if you were an overseas investor, you could invest in one of these projects and get a EB-5 visa--with no obligation to actually live in it.)
In Downtown, blocks from these new towers, there are hundreds of rent stabilized single hotel rooms sitting vacant, because just like with the illegal Airbnbs and filming locations, the city doesn't care enough to inspect them and require they be rented out. At least three of these hotels--Cecil, Barclay and Morrison--are supposedly being converted to boutique hotels eventually, which is an incentive to keep them vacant. So in fact, these new towers do actively displace poor people and contribute to gentrification.
The councilman who represented this district has been indicted on RICO charges for trading bribes for land use votes, as part of a criminal conspiracy that included a deputy mayor, at least one appointed commissioner and numerous lobbyists, developers and land use attorneys.
And the most massive of the so-called yuppie fishtanks was abandoned by the Chinese developer and is rotting away as a symbol of how public corruption spoils our built environment and contributes to the commodification of housing and the nation's worst homelessness crisis. We've got about 60,000 people on the street, and at least 111,000 vacant units. So there's room for every yuppie guppy already. It's time for Los Angeles to hit the pause button, take a hard look in the mirror, and stop doing so much to make overseas developers happy. I've never seen Angelenos more miserable, and running the city for them is why.
posted by Scram at 11:15 PM on July 3, 2021 [17 favorites]
Who said to stop building housing? That's a weird read of the thread so far.
The question was never "do we build housing or just let people live on the street?", it is "what kind of housing solves the problem?" And Yuppie Fishbowls are not solving the problem the way they are being advertised.
Like you said, the demand is higher than the supply. So by default they can't fix the problem by themselves. Really, all they can do is fix the problem for a certain class of people who can afford these units -- the Yuppies. This leaves lower-income earners just as screwed as before.
But worse, a lot of low-rent buildings are being torn down to build these Fishbowls in the first place. So not only are the new expensive units not affordable to lower-income earners, they come at the expense of units that are.
Not to mention that there remains the problem of people buying these units as investment properties, and not bothering to rent them at all. This is an issue the city is trying to address with a vacant home tax next year, but the jury is still out as to whether the tax will be high enough to sufficiently disincentivize people.
Trickle-down economics doesn't work. Trickle-down housing doesn't work. If you want to help people, you just help them, you don't help people who are doing better than them and just... hope that the side-effects work out in your favour.
Yeah we need to build housing, but let's build the right housing to help everyone, not just rich people and investors.
posted by Imperfect at 11:17 PM on July 3, 2021 [10 favorites]
The question was never "do we build housing or just let people live on the street?", it is "what kind of housing solves the problem?" And Yuppie Fishbowls are not solving the problem the way they are being advertised.
Like you said, the demand is higher than the supply. So by default they can't fix the problem by themselves. Really, all they can do is fix the problem for a certain class of people who can afford these units -- the Yuppies. This leaves lower-income earners just as screwed as before.
But worse, a lot of low-rent buildings are being torn down to build these Fishbowls in the first place. So not only are the new expensive units not affordable to lower-income earners, they come at the expense of units that are.
Not to mention that there remains the problem of people buying these units as investment properties, and not bothering to rent them at all. This is an issue the city is trying to address with a vacant home tax next year, but the jury is still out as to whether the tax will be high enough to sufficiently disincentivize people.
Trickle-down economics doesn't work. Trickle-down housing doesn't work. If you want to help people, you just help them, you don't help people who are doing better than them and just... hope that the side-effects work out in your favour.
Yeah we need to build housing, but let's build the right housing to help everyone, not just rich people and investors.
posted by Imperfect at 11:17 PM on July 3, 2021 [10 favorites]
Your city's going to have an underclass. The question is what degree of immiseration you intend to impose on them, all the while crossing your fingers that the people you think don't even have a right to a roof over their heads don't realize that they have eff-all reason not to reach for the guillotine.
As long as they stay glued to TikTok, there will be no revolution.
posted by Cardinal Fang at 12:18 AM on July 4, 2021 [1 favorite]
As long as they stay glued to TikTok, there will be no revolution.
posted by Cardinal Fang at 12:18 AM on July 4, 2021 [1 favorite]
The question is, you you really want to subsidize an underclass for your city?
Yes, though I probably wouldn’t refer to people who work for a living as “an underclass,” because that’s kind of gross?
Because building housing strictly for working class people will be just as costly as building any kind of housing…
Not all housing is equal. A 75 story luxury tower full of mechanical voids and marble bathtubs and a saltwater pool costs considerably more to build than a regular-ass mid-rise building, even though the former is less accessible to the vast majority of people and therefore does less to offfset need.
…which means a subsidy.
Okay!
And a good chance the housing will be substandard to boot.
Not necessarily. Substandard construction is a choice, not an inevitability.
Even if you were to deem housing a right, which it isn’t
Beg to differ.
posted by evidenceofabsence at 12:28 AM on July 4, 2021 [7 favorites]
Yes, though I probably wouldn’t refer to people who work for a living as “an underclass,” because that’s kind of gross?
Because building housing strictly for working class people will be just as costly as building any kind of housing…
Not all housing is equal. A 75 story luxury tower full of mechanical voids and marble bathtubs and a saltwater pool costs considerably more to build than a regular-ass mid-rise building, even though the former is less accessible to the vast majority of people and therefore does less to offfset need.
…which means a subsidy.
Okay!
And a good chance the housing will be substandard to boot.
Not necessarily. Substandard construction is a choice, not an inevitability.
Even if you were to deem housing a right, which it isn’t
Beg to differ.
posted by evidenceofabsence at 12:28 AM on July 4, 2021 [7 favorites]
Here's The Estate We're In, a BBC documentary about how a community estate in North London is being bulldozed and its residents dispersed to make room for yuppie fishtanks. (The 'regeneration' is ongoing; half the old estate is now gone, the other half is scheduled to come down in 2022.)
posted by Cardinal Fang at 12:37 AM on July 4, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by Cardinal Fang at 12:37 AM on July 4, 2021 [2 favorites]
2N2222
****
Former YIMBY here, now reformed as a PHIMBY.
Having caution about what kind of housing gets built should not necessarily mean NIMBYism. More people should absolutely question folks who utter the words “neighborhood character” (which character?) or “concerns about traffic” (why not build bike, transit infrastructure?). As Smith says in another essay, cities will change. But like most things in life and unlike YIMBYism, it isn’t good to say “yes” to everything.
If one pays attention to their local affordable housing commission, one would probably find that they want affordable housing first. Not “yuppie fishbowls”.
posted by EmperorOozy at 3:30 AM on July 4, 2021 [6 favorites]
Even if you were to deem housing a right, which it isn'tWoah there. Woah. There.
****
Former YIMBY here, now reformed as a PHIMBY.
Having caution about what kind of housing gets built should not necessarily mean NIMBYism. More people should absolutely question folks who utter the words “neighborhood character” (which character?) or “concerns about traffic” (why not build bike, transit infrastructure?). As Smith says in another essay, cities will change. But like most things in life and unlike YIMBYism, it isn’t good to say “yes” to everything.
If one pays attention to their local affordable housing commission, one would probably find that they want affordable housing first. Not “yuppie fishbowls”.
posted by EmperorOozy at 3:30 AM on July 4, 2021 [6 favorites]
OP here. Can I request that people not pile onto 2N2222? Not sure we need more than five eight people criticizing them.
EmperorOozy: Former YIMBY here, now reformed as a PHIMBY.
I like that idea ("public housing in my backyard"). But I don't know that it's going to be any more effective than YIMBY.
In Vancouver, where people tend to be progressive, what happens is that there's still fierce opposition to neighborhood change, even for below-market housing, but it gets expressed using progressive language. The city of Vancouver and the Vancouver School Board are building a school with child care and social housing in the downtown area, and went through a public hearing to add another floor of social housing. Speakers at the public hearing were overwhelmingly opposed.
An initiative to loosen zoning to allow non-profit societies to build 12-story mixed-income rental buildings was voted down 7-3. (City council is fragmented, but has a progressive majority. Two of the three Green councilors voted against; one declared a conflict of interest.)
imperfect: a lot of low-rent buildings are being torn down to build these Fishbowls in the first place. So not only are the new expensive units not affordable to lower-income earners, they come at the expense of units that are.
Redevelopment of existing low-cost rentals is definitely a problem in the Metro Vancouver area. There's a number of older low-rise apartments near Metrotown in Burnaby that have been torn down to build condo towers. An expert panel (jointly funded by the provincial and federal governments) recently released a report on the problem of housing affordability and supply in BC. One of their key recommendations was to provide more federal funding for non-profit societies to buy and preserve existing low-rent housing (and to build more non-profit housing, including mixed-income projects).
The city of Vancouver's approach is to use restrictive zoning and reject projects that would displace renters. But there's still tremendous opposition even when there's no displacement. A project to build a 28-story rental apartment building on the site of a former Denny's restaurant, including 20% below-market housing, was only approved by a 6-5 vote.
The expert panel report notes that bottlenecks at the municipal level, like the public hearing process, have really slowed down the responsiveness of housing supply. (This is important because usually when housing costs rise it becomes more profitable to build a lot more housing, pushing down costs again.) The big question is whether the province will intervene to remove these bottlenecks.
posted by russilwvong at 9:59 AM on July 4, 2021 [3 favorites]
EmperorOozy: Former YIMBY here, now reformed as a PHIMBY.
I like that idea ("public housing in my backyard"). But I don't know that it's going to be any more effective than YIMBY.
In Vancouver, where people tend to be progressive, what happens is that there's still fierce opposition to neighborhood change, even for below-market housing, but it gets expressed using progressive language. The city of Vancouver and the Vancouver School Board are building a school with child care and social housing in the downtown area, and went through a public hearing to add another floor of social housing. Speakers at the public hearing were overwhelmingly opposed.
An initiative to loosen zoning to allow non-profit societies to build 12-story mixed-income rental buildings was voted down 7-3. (City council is fragmented, but has a progressive majority. Two of the three Green councilors voted against; one declared a conflict of interest.)
imperfect: a lot of low-rent buildings are being torn down to build these Fishbowls in the first place. So not only are the new expensive units not affordable to lower-income earners, they come at the expense of units that are.
Redevelopment of existing low-cost rentals is definitely a problem in the Metro Vancouver area. There's a number of older low-rise apartments near Metrotown in Burnaby that have been torn down to build condo towers. An expert panel (jointly funded by the provincial and federal governments) recently released a report on the problem of housing affordability and supply in BC. One of their key recommendations was to provide more federal funding for non-profit societies to buy and preserve existing low-rent housing (and to build more non-profit housing, including mixed-income projects).
The city of Vancouver's approach is to use restrictive zoning and reject projects that would displace renters. But there's still tremendous opposition even when there's no displacement. A project to build a 28-story rental apartment building on the site of a former Denny's restaurant, including 20% below-market housing, was only approved by a 6-5 vote.
The expert panel report notes that bottlenecks at the municipal level, like the public hearing process, have really slowed down the responsiveness of housing supply. (This is important because usually when housing costs rise it becomes more profitable to build a lot more housing, pushing down costs again.) The big question is whether the province will intervene to remove these bottlenecks.
posted by russilwvong at 9:59 AM on July 4, 2021 [3 favorites]
If you want more affordable housing, build the most affordable buildings--3-5 story multi-unit buildings and row houses--and make it easy to build them. Montreal does this and has some of the most affordable housing relative to incomes in N America.
3-5 story row houses and multi-unit buildings share the low-cost construction of single-unit housing with the density needed for cheap urban services.
Toronto, Vancouver, Seattle, SF, LA, etc. all encourage single detached units or high-rise apartment complexes, which fail at density and low-cost construction respectively.
posted by head full of air at 10:21 AM on July 4, 2021 [8 favorites]
3-5 story row houses and multi-unit buildings share the low-cost construction of single-unit housing with the density needed for cheap urban services.
Toronto, Vancouver, Seattle, SF, LA, etc. all encourage single detached units or high-rise apartment complexes, which fail at density and low-cost construction respectively.
posted by head full of air at 10:21 AM on July 4, 2021 [8 favorites]
I wonder about operating and repair costs as well as construction costs. I especially wonder about this when told that glass skyscraper housing will filter down to become middle-income housing. I know how that works with 3-5 story buildings, and I’m not sure a high rise could handle that level of dilapidation.
posted by clew at 10:35 AM on July 4, 2021 [3 favorites]
posted by clew at 10:35 AM on July 4, 2021 [3 favorites]
clew, it really doesn't.
For much more information, check out https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u0vDEyLh1yM, but the short of it is that modern condos really DON'T age gracefully. These new pretty fishbowls actually age TERRIBLY, and maintenance costs SOAR. They're basically time bombs seemingly designed to make miserable long-term living conditions.
posted by Imperfect at 10:58 AM on July 4, 2021 [6 favorites]
For much more information, check out https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u0vDEyLh1yM, but the short of it is that modern condos really DON'T age gracefully. These new pretty fishbowls actually age TERRIBLY, and maintenance costs SOAR. They're basically time bombs seemingly designed to make miserable long-term living conditions.
posted by Imperfect at 10:58 AM on July 4, 2021 [6 favorites]
Above I linked to a Manhattan Institute piece on Montreal's housing policy. Sorry to post that quickly-searched drivel. The comment stands though.
posted by head full of air at 11:03 AM on July 4, 2021
posted by head full of air at 11:03 AM on July 4, 2021
modern condos really DON'T age gracefully
That might explain why all the purpose-built new rental apartment towers in my area have brick and other durable facades, unlike the all-glass condos they keep building. The landlord has a vested interest in a building that will last when they build it.
posted by fimbulvetr at 12:44 PM on July 4, 2021 [2 favorites]
That might explain why all the purpose-built new rental apartment towers in my area have brick and other durable facades, unlike the all-glass condos they keep building. The landlord has a vested interest in a building that will last when they build it.
posted by fimbulvetr at 12:44 PM on July 4, 2021 [2 favorites]
Seems weird to write this using the SF rental market as an example while ignoring the impacts of covid.
All of these luxury yuppie fishtanks are sitting pretty empty, judging by the desperation of the craigslist ads I see and the lack of lights on in the ones that just went up in the last year or so in my neighborhood. All the yuppie amenities they mention, like gyms and common spaces and forced interaction with your "community" in that long elevator ride up the tower, aren't really all that desirably anymore.
The yuppies with the means are now just over-bidding each other in cash offers for houses with backyard in working class neighborhoods, or moving out of the area entirely to work remotely and (from what I've heard on the internet!) ruining everyone else in the country's housing market.
posted by bradbane at 1:24 PM on July 4, 2021 [4 favorites]
All of these luxury yuppie fishtanks are sitting pretty empty, judging by the desperation of the craigslist ads I see and the lack of lights on in the ones that just went up in the last year or so in my neighborhood. All the yuppie amenities they mention, like gyms and common spaces and forced interaction with your "community" in that long elevator ride up the tower, aren't really all that desirably anymore.
The yuppies with the means are now just over-bidding each other in cash offers for houses with backyard in working class neighborhoods, or moving out of the area entirely to work remotely and (from what I've heard on the internet!) ruining everyone else in the country's housing market.
posted by bradbane at 1:24 PM on July 4, 2021 [4 favorites]
Brick buildings are durable but require regular maintenance in the form of repointing. I imagine that’s part of the calculus when people opt for glass and panel structures instead. Durability aside, I feel like putting up high-rises with floor to ceiling glass windows in the middle of a climate crisis is kind of a bad thing?
Cities and economies both expand and contract, and construction that’s cheaper to build and maintain is more modular. You can overcharge for units in tower-in-the-park brick buildings that were built as affordable housing and call them luxury apartments, but large units in a 1,500 foot glass building can’t be maintained at rates that will enable everyday people to live there, even if the market takes a swan dive.
I can get behind mixed-income construction that’s primarily low and mid-cost units with some penthouses slapped on top to offset costs, but an 80/20 split between luxury and affordable units is the opposite of what we need, especially in cities where the market for high-end luxury units has been saturated. Housing availability aside, that breakdown also ensures that working class people will be thoroughly marginalized in the resulting neighborhood, making it difficult for them to organize politically and ensure their needs are met, and it’s not at all clear that the benefit from that paucity of units is sufficient to offset displacement, an increase in property rates in the surrounding area, and decades of billion-dollar tax breaks.
An 80/20 split seems like a plan that’s built around investment earnings, not around making as much stable, long-term housing available as soon as possible. New construction might encounter less community resistance if people were proposing structures that most people can actually envision themselves living and thriving in.
posted by evidenceofabsence at 2:06 PM on July 4, 2021
Cities and economies both expand and contract, and construction that’s cheaper to build and maintain is more modular. You can overcharge for units in tower-in-the-park brick buildings that were built as affordable housing and call them luxury apartments, but large units in a 1,500 foot glass building can’t be maintained at rates that will enable everyday people to live there, even if the market takes a swan dive.
I can get behind mixed-income construction that’s primarily low and mid-cost units with some penthouses slapped on top to offset costs, but an 80/20 split between luxury and affordable units is the opposite of what we need, especially in cities where the market for high-end luxury units has been saturated. Housing availability aside, that breakdown also ensures that working class people will be thoroughly marginalized in the resulting neighborhood, making it difficult for them to organize politically and ensure their needs are met, and it’s not at all clear that the benefit from that paucity of units is sufficient to offset displacement, an increase in property rates in the surrounding area, and decades of billion-dollar tax breaks.
An 80/20 split seems like a plan that’s built around investment earnings, not around making as much stable, long-term housing available as soon as possible. New construction might encounter less community resistance if people were proposing structures that most people can actually envision themselves living and thriving in.
posted by evidenceofabsence at 2:06 PM on July 4, 2021
Just require each developer to add housing whose pricing maps to the income graph of people living in the city limits. That is, expressly disallow catering only to the high end. You build 10 units that cost $300k, you have to build 40 smaller/less tricked out units that cost $100k. Or whatever. And levy a heavy tax on vacant units to encourage landlords to rent at lower rates if they can’t fill places at list price. Also, heavy tax on any units rented or sublet at terms less than 6 months (to prevent Airbnb). And finally, some similar trickery to boot out overseas owners like the stereotypical Russian or Chinese oligarchs. You buy it, you better live there or in the unit next door. Sorry!
posted by freecellwizard at 3:42 PM on July 4, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by freecellwizard at 3:42 PM on July 4, 2021 [1 favorite]
Eventually, every yuppie fishtank unit that you build will be occupied by a yuppie.
This is the linchpin of Smith's argument. I think I'd like to see data for it.
I see a lot of real estate in cities being bought up and redone by developers, but it seems it must cost less to leave it empty than to take lower rents, because vacancy rates seem to remain high for these "fish tanks".
Encouraging new building is fine. I just think cities need to be smart and join it with tax policy that pushes developers to lower rents, by penalizing vacancy. If you take up city space, you should be encouraged by whatever incentives to fill it with people.
Tax policy is the other half of the larger plan that Smith leaves out. Otherwise, this is just voodoo economics of the trickle-down variety.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 4:28 PM on July 4, 2021 [3 favorites]
This is the linchpin of Smith's argument. I think I'd like to see data for it.
I see a lot of real estate in cities being bought up and redone by developers, but it seems it must cost less to leave it empty than to take lower rents, because vacancy rates seem to remain high for these "fish tanks".
Encouraging new building is fine. I just think cities need to be smart and join it with tax policy that pushes developers to lower rents, by penalizing vacancy. If you take up city space, you should be encouraged by whatever incentives to fill it with people.
Tax policy is the other half of the larger plan that Smith leaves out. Otherwise, this is just voodoo economics of the trickle-down variety.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 4:28 PM on July 4, 2021 [3 favorites]
I think the linchpin of Smith’s argument is that there are a fixed number of yuppies attracted to a city, and if you catch them all you’re done. But I think yuppies, and their jobs, attract each other.
posted by clew at 4:57 PM on July 4, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by clew at 4:57 PM on July 4, 2021 [2 favorites]
Late to the party, but is this the exact same Noah Smith in today's Bloomberg talking about how high-rises don't make much sense and 'arent really built anyways'?. I feeling like he might not be a genuinely concerned person, but more of a guy who just makes whatever pro-developer argument gets him traction at the moment.
posted by whm at 9:44 AM on July 5, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by whm at 9:44 AM on July 5, 2021 [1 favorite]
"Yuppie fishtanks" is YIMBY propaganda. (I don't think the author would disagree! Two of his first three paragraphs are a contextual framing of the political struggle between progressives and YIMBYs.)
posted by dusty potato at 10:51 AM on July 5, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by dusty potato at 10:51 AM on July 5, 2021 [1 favorite]
if you catch them all you’re done
I suppose I read the tl;dr of the piece more as: if you build for rich people yuppies, they will come, and in turn they won't gentrify other neighborhoods.
But that does not really seem to bear out when looking at real-world cities where this policy is applied. Perhaps NYC seems a canonical example, where the data suggest expensive residential buildings are left empty — presumably attractive to the "yuppie" contingent discussed here by the author — while, in reality, others living in other less-expensive neighborhoods surrounding Manhattan get priced up and out. The data there seem to invalidate Smith's argument, if not offer a cautionary tale of what happens when it is tried out in practice.
There are other externals that can discourage vacancy — tax policy being one — but they may not be developer-friendly and were perhaps left out by the writer, for that reason. I'd like to know where the data are coming from which support the author's thesis.
But if I'm not reading him correctly, please let me know. It's actually a subject of interest to me as the governance of the city I live in is being pushed on very hard by developers and their lobbyists. They are spending a lot to buy policies that prevent rent control and discourage permitting for single-family homes. My immediate neighborhood (and my home, by extension) is under pressure for redevelopment into high-density apartment, condos, and townhomes. As a for instance, when my property taxes rise, while high-density developers get decades-long tax breaks and other incentives, I feel like I have to start asking some uncomfortable questions about who is really in charge of the city I live in. Pieces of this sort have the feel of propaganda, in that way.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 1:31 PM on July 5, 2021 [2 favorites]
I suppose I read the tl;dr of the piece more as: if you build for rich people yuppies, they will come, and in turn they won't gentrify other neighborhoods.
But that does not really seem to bear out when looking at real-world cities where this policy is applied. Perhaps NYC seems a canonical example, where the data suggest expensive residential buildings are left empty — presumably attractive to the "yuppie" contingent discussed here by the author — while, in reality, others living in other less-expensive neighborhoods surrounding Manhattan get priced up and out. The data there seem to invalidate Smith's argument, if not offer a cautionary tale of what happens when it is tried out in practice.
There are other externals that can discourage vacancy — tax policy being one — but they may not be developer-friendly and were perhaps left out by the writer, for that reason. I'd like to know where the data are coming from which support the author's thesis.
But if I'm not reading him correctly, please let me know. It's actually a subject of interest to me as the governance of the city I live in is being pushed on very hard by developers and their lobbyists. They are spending a lot to buy policies that prevent rent control and discourage permitting for single-family homes. My immediate neighborhood (and my home, by extension) is under pressure for redevelopment into high-density apartment, condos, and townhomes. As a for instance, when my property taxes rise, while high-density developers get decades-long tax breaks and other incentives, I feel like I have to start asking some uncomfortable questions about who is really in charge of the city I live in. Pieces of this sort have the feel of propaganda, in that way.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 1:31 PM on July 5, 2021 [2 favorites]
Because this post is nothing but falsehoods and incorrect statements, and what amounts of basically Republican propaganda and proposals (and you all continue to wonder why they win so many elections!) here is some actual research. I know it doesn't matter and won't change any minds, but this is my hobbyhorse and I like to ride it.
A study from Germany His can actually predict rents based on rates of new construction.
"This paper adds to a growing body of evidence that new market rate construction triggers a chain-reaction of moves and price adjustments that rapidly propagate through an entire housing market and ultimately benefit low income households. "
Report cited from Los Angeles
Also Toronto doesn't have half the North American cranes; they set a record in 2019 building 12,000 rental units, that hadn't been surpassed since the 1970s. All our modern technology and we build less housing than the 1970s. Wow. That's sad. And funny. "My parents paid $15k for a brand new house. Why did mine cost $500k?" That's why.
Also, 12000 units isn't anywhere near the top 20 vs similar sized metros in the US. That's why your rents are increasing.
posted by The_Vegetables at 7:56 AM on July 6, 2021 [1 favorite]
A study from Germany His can actually predict rents based on rates of new construction.
"This paper adds to a growing body of evidence that new market rate construction triggers a chain-reaction of moves and price adjustments that rapidly propagate through an entire housing market and ultimately benefit low income households. "
Report cited from Los Angeles
Also Toronto doesn't have half the North American cranes; they set a record in 2019 building 12,000 rental units, that hadn't been surpassed since the 1970s. All our modern technology and we build less housing than the 1970s. Wow. That's sad. And funny. "My parents paid $15k for a brand new house. Why did mine cost $500k?" That's why.
Also, 12000 units isn't anywhere near the top 20 vs similar sized metros in the US. That's why your rents are increasing.
posted by The_Vegetables at 7:56 AM on July 6, 2021 [1 favorite]
"We should invest in social and affordable housing and make sure people can afford to stay in the housing and communities they already live in" are hardly Republican talking points.
The "Report cited from Los Angeles" link notes that new units typically become more affordable over the course of 20-25 years as housing degrades. That's going to be cold comfort to people and communities that are being displaced and disbanded now. Why not put up less-fantastical, more-durable buildings that will cause less displacement and house more middle-class and lower-income households from the jump? They'll depreciate, too.
The study from Germany predicts market elasticity but elides over the fact that people's lives aren't perfectly elastic. It begins to acknowledge that some households can't afford moving costs, but doesn't factor in that most people can't regularly and repeatedly uproot themselves and their families, and that there are a whole lot of external costs to doing so. Most jobs can't be done from anywhere. Most people have personal, family, and community ties, and the costs to severing them are real, if not easily quantifiable.
Even so, the German study proposes gradual densification, which is kind of the opposite of the suggestion that everyone should suddenly slap a bunch of luxury high-rise glass towers in the middle of their downtown.
We aren't faced with an either/or between luxury towers and no development at all. Why not build what we need rather than waiting decades to see if the market can sort that out for us?
posted by evidenceofabsence at 9:15 AM on July 6, 2021
The "Report cited from Los Angeles" link notes that new units typically become more affordable over the course of 20-25 years as housing degrades. That's going to be cold comfort to people and communities that are being displaced and disbanded now. Why not put up less-fantastical, more-durable buildings that will cause less displacement and house more middle-class and lower-income households from the jump? They'll depreciate, too.
The study from Germany predicts market elasticity but elides over the fact that people's lives aren't perfectly elastic. It begins to acknowledge that some households can't afford moving costs, but doesn't factor in that most people can't regularly and repeatedly uproot themselves and their families, and that there are a whole lot of external costs to doing so. Most jobs can't be done from anywhere. Most people have personal, family, and community ties, and the costs to severing them are real, if not easily quantifiable.
Even so, the German study proposes gradual densification, which is kind of the opposite of the suggestion that everyone should suddenly slap a bunch of luxury high-rise glass towers in the middle of their downtown.
We aren't faced with an either/or between luxury towers and no development at all. Why not build what we need rather than waiting decades to see if the market can sort that out for us?
posted by evidenceofabsence at 9:15 AM on July 6, 2021
Why not build what we need rather than waiting decades to see if the market can sort that out for us?
Because no metro in the US is building 'what we need'. Full stop. We aren't even building what people want! That's the huge disconnect! The south is coming the closest by just building, but that is resulting in huge numbers of people being displaced via moving to the south.
That's going to be cold comfort to people and communities that are being displaced and disbanded now
It is, at the neighborhood level, but people move for all sorts of reasons, so having 'displacement' as a primary concern is causing more problems than it is solving.
More proof of cost-burdened in various metros and situations
posted by The_Vegetables at 9:53 AM on July 7, 2021 [1 favorite]
Because no metro in the US is building 'what we need'. Full stop. We aren't even building what people want! That's the huge disconnect! The south is coming the closest by just building, but that is resulting in huge numbers of people being displaced via moving to the south.
That's going to be cold comfort to people and communities that are being displaced and disbanded now
It is, at the neighborhood level, but people move for all sorts of reasons, so having 'displacement' as a primary concern is causing more problems than it is solving.
More proof of cost-burdened in various metros and situations
posted by The_Vegetables at 9:53 AM on July 7, 2021 [1 favorite]
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